I’VE written this book called Stupid Stories for Tough Times. I’m supposed to write this piece in such a way that will make you think, ‘By heck, I need that book’. Subliminally, so you don’t notice. So here goes.

It’s a collection of 11 short stories, plus a rewrite of Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade. I wrote them between 2017-2023.

The book happened almost by accident. I’ve dreamed of being a novelist since I was at school. Needless to say, it’s a much harder business than it seems at age 11. My first attempts were awful, as were my second and third. Even into my thirties I was trying and failing to write the Great Novel. There was one called Double Insomnia that died of authorial boredom two-thirds through.

Another, Bradford Circus, never got past the title. My problem was I was trying too hard, and saying too little. I gave up on the idea and wrote plays instead, produced at Bradford Playhouse and Theatre in the Mill. These plays are some of my proudest achievements: Welcome to Paradise in 2003, Funny Men in 2008, Working Lives in 2011 and others.

Writing for the theatre taught me a lot, mostly about being quick, and not being boring. One of the best things about live theatre, and the most terrifying, is that you know at once if what you’ve written is any good. The audience tells you right there. If you intend a line to be funny, and they laugh, that’s surely the writer’s perfect validation. The flip side is that once the performance is over, it’s over. There’s nothing left of the play except memories.

I went back to that first dream, of writing stories that would exist in published books. I thought if I tried writing narrative prose again, my playwriting experience might help me do it better this time.

I started off writing short stories; I knew I’d be able to finish them before they started to bore me. One of these became a short novel, Down to Earth, published last year. Emma Clayton reviewed it in the Telegraph & Argus, saying it was “an enjoyable dystopian satire - tense, eerie and laced with humour”. I was chuffed to bits.

Once I’d written a handful of stories, I noticed they were all in various ways concerned with the strange ‘here and now’ we’ve been living through since, let’s say, about 2016. Once I realised that, the title was obvious. Most of the stories are meant to be, to some degree, funny. Some others are quieter, sadder; that’s the other side of humour. But every one of them is intended to be enjoyable, to be more healing than hurtful.

Most of the stories in Andrew's collection contain an element of fantasy Most of the stories in Andrew's collection contain an element of fantasy (Image: Andrew Crowther)

Most of the stories contain an element of fantasy. You’ll find trolls and sprites and statues come to life, and other things you don’t see every day. I’ve always felt if you’re going to invent stories, you might as well tell of wonders and marvels. By heck, I need to get that book...

* Stupid Stories for Tough Times is available, £7.99, from Hay Press, an imprint of Renard Press. Andrew Crowther’s previous novel, Down to Earth, is from Stairwell Books.